Cape Breton woman maintains a passion for travel

Lindsay Campbell-Peach, left, and her mother Linda Campbell in Rome, September 2017. Campbell-Peach encouraged her mother to accept an offer to run the Malcom Munroe junior high school travel group to Ottawa back in 1995. Since then Campbell has organized 16 trips to Ottawa as well as trips to New York and Europe. - Contributed

Retired teacher misses trips with students moves on to adult groups

PORT MORIEN

Linda Campbell might not be sure what came first — her love of travel or her love of co-ordinating travel groups.

During her 38-year career as a teacher, the Birch Grove native was given the opportunity to run the student travel group at Malcolm Munroe (junior high) school.

When then-principal Adrian Bates asked Campbell in 1995 if she would oversee the group, the married mother of one wasn’t sure she could handle it. But a phone call to her daughter, Lindsay Campbell-Peach, who was in her first year at Acadia University in Wolfville, convinced her to take the plunge.

“I was so lonesome when she went off to university I didn’t know what to do,” said the now retired home economics teacher.

“I just thought that (Bates) was absolutely crazy. I couldn’t handle that. But Lindsay encouraged me. She said, ‘Go for it, Mom.’”

After that first successful trip to Ottawa, with the months of fundraising leading up to it, Campbell was hooked.

When she was transferred to Glace Bay High School, where she stayed for the last eight years of her career, Campbell was recruited for the travel group there and they took trips to Ottawa, New York and Europe.

“I realized the value of taking students on these trips, the lessons they learned from travelling. Some of these kids don’t get off Cape Breton Island ever,” said Campbell.

Campbell said students learned things like how to budget their money while on the trip, how to organize themselves for fundraisers and how to communicate with others.

“These were all valuable lessons, more than just giving them a trip,” she said.

After retiring in 2011, Campbell did some travelling on her own and booked some trips with Maritime Travel on Charlotte Street in Sydney.

When she got the urge to do some more group trips, she reached out to branch manager Cathy Price who helped her set up her first adult tour — a trip to Italy in 2017.

“There’s no benefit to Linda to do this. It’s just her passion,” said the travel agent, explaining Campbell could take free trips because she sets up the tours but she chooses not to do that.

“She’s a sweet, amazing person.”

When Campbell and Price organized the Italy tour, 32 people signed up. This meant the company they use to provide tour guides and bus travel, Trafalgar Tours, offered them a free trip. Instead of using it, the women took the $3,200 value and paid for an extra night accommodation for everyone in the group.

For their upcoming trip to Greece in September, Price customized the holiday, which is also being run by Trafalgar Tours.

The trip will include a visit to a local farm in Olympia, watching artists work in Kalambaka and sailing the Aegean Sea to Mykonos.

Eighteen people have already signed up for the two-week tour, which costs $4,190-$4,290 per person (based on double occupancy) plus airfare. They need a minimum of 20 people for the trip and Campbell believes they will be well over that number.

For her, it seems organizing the groups may be more of a highlight than going on the trip itself.

“It’s just that wonderful, the feeling you get when you see other people enjoying a great trip,” she said.

“I guess it’s the satisfaction of seeing them enjoying themselves. I felt that way with the students, too.”